Note 312 — Chapter IV

That the natural powers of the human brain are improving because they are capable of transmission, is a favourite doctrine with the followers of Gall, and is adopted by M. A. Comte (Philosophie Positive, vol. iv. pp. 384, 385); who, whoever, admits that it has never been sufficiently verified: ‘sans que toutefois l'expérience ait encore suffisamment prononcé.’ Dr. Prichard, whose habits of thought were very different, seems, nevertheless, inclined to lean in this direction; for his comparison of skulls led him to the conclusion, that the present inhabitants of Britain, ‘either as the result of many ages of greater intellectual cultivation, or from some other cause, have, as I am persuaded, much more capacious braincases than their forefathers.’ Prichard's Physical History of Mankind, vol. i. p. 305. Even if this were certain, it would not prove that the contents of the crania were altered, though it might create a presumption; and the general question must, I think, remain unsettled until the researches begun by Blumenbach, and recently continued by Morton, are carried out upon a scale far more comprehensive than has hitherto been attempted. Compare Burdach, Traité de Physiologie, vol. ii. p. 253; where, however, the question is not stated with sufficient caution.